[ BUSINESS BRIEFS ]

Staff writer, with agencies

Tech stocks lead rally

The TAIEX rose nearly 1 percent yesterday, fueled by surges on Wall Street and in European markets on Friday, with the benchmark index briefly rising above the 7,300 mark for the first time since July 10, boosted by interest in large-cap electronics stocks.

The weighted index ranged between a high of 7,340.56 and a low of 7,276.60 before closing up 68.82 points, or 0.95 percent, at 7,286.33 on turnover of NT$81.23 billion (US$2.71 billion).

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海) closed up by the daily maximum of 7 percent at NT$87.30, after chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) said the company could renegotiate the price of the stake in Japan-based Sharp Corp it committed to acquire in March.

A total of 2,305 stocks closed up, 1,844 finished down and 433 were unchanged.

FX reserves drop as euro falls

Foreign exchange reserves totaled US$391.11 billion as of the end of last month, down US$127 million from a month earlier, the central bank said yesterday.

“The euro depreciated against the US dollar last month, making foreign exchange reserves denominated in euro worth less in terms of the base currency, the US dollar,” Lin Sun-yuan (林孫源), director-general of the bank’s foreign exchange department, told a press briefing.

Net outflow of foreign capital — which totaled US$2.79 billion last month — was the other factor dragging down last month’s foreign exchange reserves, Lin added.

The market value of securities investments and deposits held by foreign portfolios last month reached their lowest level this year at US$193.7 billion, which is equivalent to 50 percent of foreign exchange reserves, the bank said.